Strings

New guitar strings fitted today on the Epiphone dreadnought. The last ones had been on since 2018 and were getting a bit dull and smelly (grease from your hands). It’s a long job taking about an hour and a half, and I always dislike doing it, but it’s worth it in the end.

I don’t usually throw the old ones away in case I break one and need a spare – something that has only ever happened once or twice in my life. I looked in my old electric guitar case: there could be every string I’ve had in fifty years. Have put the metal ones for recycling. 

There are other things in the guitar case too, but I’ll save them for later.

Premium Bonds

In August, 1957, my grandfather bought me and my brother one of the first £1 Premium Bonds each. They had been introduced just under a year earlier on the 1st November, 1956, to encourage people to save. He bought us each another £1 bond in 1959.

Rather than paying interest, bonds were entered in a monthly prize draw, drawn by ERNIE (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment), a Colossus computer. They retained their original value and could be cashed in at any time.

In those days, the maximum you could invest was £500 and the top prize was £1,000, as compared to £50,000 and £1 million today. Also, today, you cannot invest less than £25 at a time.

I didn’t cash mine in. In fact, I later bought more, and once won £500. I still have the original two, along with the others, and my Premium Bond record shows a total investment ending in 02.  The original bonds are now numbered 000AB01---- and 000AB76----.  

The records are all electronic now, but here are my two original paper certificates. 

A dutiful grandfather thinking of his grandchildren’s financial future? These two particular bonds have never won a thing.